Out comes the measuring tape. Who’s ready to see picture of my socks??

(note: my apologies for the unreadable numbers on the tape measure. The close up resolution on my camera is probably worse than the one on your phone. So I put the dimensions on there (using Inkscape) for clarity’s sake. Click on the picture if you want to enlarge. For some strange reason.)

So if I had the ability to mash all my objects up into a perfect rectangular prism, I would require 2396 cubic inches. This begs some additional questions:

How much is 2396 cubic inches? I have no idea what that looks like. Is that a lot? That sounds like a lot.

You can’t just mash everything up. Won’t we need a bit extra space to organize it all?

The answer to the first question is found like this. One cubic foot is:

So my stuff is this many cubic feet.

If you’ll remember from Part 1, the United Airlines website lists the maximum dimensions of carry-on luggage as 9″ x 14″ x 22″. Or,

At this point, I’d like to reiterate my skepticism over those listed dimensions. Let’s address that skepticism right here with a suitcase I’ve taken as a carry-on before, that I suspect exceeds those listed dimensions. Here’s my suitcase that I’m always able to carry on.

Hmm. So I need a suitcase that’s at least 1.4 cubic feet for my stuff (but probably more), but probably smaller than 1.875 cubic feet. That seems like a pretty tight range. Moreover, I’ll probably need more than 1.4 cubic feet based on my irregularly shaped objects. I’ll address this is Part 3, in which I brush off my Tetris style stacking skills. Stay tuned!

Until then, please enjoy this adorable video of my cat emerging from my suitcase. She does not count as carry-on luggage (she does, however, dramatically improve this blog’s SEO).